The Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy (Academy) is pleased to submit this application to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to conduct a research development conference that will address the role of research in strengthening service delivery in long-term care (LTC). Conference participants will begin to identify ways in which researchers, LTC providers, and policymakers can work together to identify research needs and incorporate research findings into LTC service delivery and policy decisions. The conference will help to foster strong alliances among these stakeholders and encourage action to address the many complexities of LTC. Finally, the conference will serve as the backdrop for a number of written products which will be widely disseminated to researchers, providers and policymakers. We anticipate that the conference will be sponsored by a coalition of funders including The Retirement Research Foundation, AARP and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in addition to AHRQ, and will be conducted by the Academy. To date, the Academy has received a grant in amount of $48,878 from The Retirement Research Foundation, and the proposal has received positive staff support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), where it is awaiting a final funding decision. The attached letter also demonstrates AARP's support for the project. We have requested funding of approximately $10,000 from AARP and $90,000 from the RWJF. The Academy will achieve the goals of the conference through four major tasks: 1) plan and conduct a Planning Committee meeting; 2) plan and conduct an Invitational Conference; 3) reconvene a group (likely a subset of the planning committee) to evaluate the key products of the conference as a whole; and 4) write a final report, circulate it for comment to the planning committee, and disseminate the report, submitting other written materials generated from the conference for publication consideration. The commissioned papers and conference discussion will be organized around two themes: - Service Delivery Research, including issues of improving care from an operational perspective, the consumer/family role, using information services, integrating acute/chronic care, and staffing. - Policy Research, including issues of financing, state and federal regulation, and licensure. The two commissioned papers will be written by researchers very familiar with pragmatic issues in LTC service delivery and policymaking: one by someone very familiar with service delivery issues, such as Penny Feldman, and one by someone very familiar with the financing and regulatory issues, such as Joshua Wiener. We will instruct the paper writers that they should meet with/interview key stakeholders, including those in the industry, so that their papers include some real world examples/perspectives, rather than just a review of the research literature. The papers will be written for a non-research audience, particularly providers and policymakers. The two commissioned papers will be used as vehicles for stimulating conference discussion and ideas for partnerships among these constituencies. As noted in the draft agenda in Appendix A, panelists who are service providers or policymakers will be asked to respond to each of the paper presentations. The panelists will help to identify how LTC researchers might "push the envelope" and develop innovative ways to address important issues.